Hi everyone!
Our meeting last week, led by Melissa, focused on academic elitism and exclusion in feminism. All of us here at FSO are privileged in that we have access to an excellent education, and therefore this isn’t something we have to think about very often, but it’s very important to recognize. Let’s go into this a little bit more.
One of the biggest problems with (white) feminism is the focus on academic study. While obviously this is an important part of the feminist movement, it isn’t the only part, and many people focus too much on it and disregard other aspects of the movement. Many people (especially people of color!) do not have access to the materials necessary, whether due to lack of financial resources, language barriers, or any other reason. Even native English speakers can have difficulty with the academic jargon that many feminist papers are filled with.
This is especially noticeable in the policing of language surrounding activism. An example brought up in the discussion was that while many of us would be incredibly offended by the word “b*tch,” many self-identified feminists use it all the time, whether because it is part of their colloquial speech or just because they haven’t been told that it can be offensive. The same is true for many other terms that can be found offensive by different minorities.
Newbies to activism and feminism are especially vulnerable to this. Sometimes, when we’ve been embedded in social justice for a while, it’s easy to forget that we were once learning too! I know that when I joined FSO as a freshman, I was very intimidated by the amount of knowledge that everyone else seemed to have and which I definitely didn’t, and many others in our discussion voiced the same experience. It makes it scary to speak up and voice your opinion, especially when you see others get put down for making mistakes.
We tend to forget that those mistakes are very easy to make, even for those who have been educated. Celebrities especially are put up on a pedestal where they’re expected to be perfect at every moment, and if they make one slip up, they face attacks instead of being called in.
Despite the fact that most of our discussion was based around academic elitism, there are other types of exclusion from feminism that minorities face. A huge example of this is the Women’s March. Despite the goals of the organization to be an intersectional event and to include women of color and trans women, the turnout did not reflect that. (For more info on some of the problems with the Women’s March, check out this article.) This is why we should always make a conscious effort to include people of color, trans people, disabled people, and others that do not always get a voice in our feminism.
Hope that gives you something to think about. See you next week!
As of Fall 2017, Tréa Lavery is FSO’s Blog Coordinator and a member of the E-board. She is a journalism major and is passionate about terrible punk music, taking care of her plants, and making her winged eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man.
FSO@NEU 